mmmaSkmii^ 


it^m^. 


Three  Historical  Events 
In  Maine 


BY  THE 

Rev.  T.  J.  CAMPBELL,  S.  J. 


Published  at  the  request  of  the 

Rt.  Reverend  LOUIS  S.  WALSH,  D  D. 

Bishop  of  Portland,  Me. 


THE  AMERICA   PRESS 

New  York 

1910 


e/-'( 


Three   Historical   Events 
In  Maine 


BY  THE  . 


Rev.  T.  J.  CAMPBELL,  S.  J. 


Published  at  the  request  of  the 

Rt.  Reverend  LOUIS  S.  WALSH,  D.D. 

Bishop  of  Portland,  Me. 


THE  AMERICA   PRESS 

New  York 

1910 


oJ$164 


BOSTON  COLLEGE  LIBRARY 
GHESCNUI  HILL,  MASS^ 


Golden    Jubilee   of   St.    John's 

Bangor,  Me.,  November  5,    1906 


Golden   Jubilee    of   St.    John's 

On  an  occasion  like  this,  when  the  church,  with  all  the 
solemn  and  sublime  pageantry  of  its  sacred  ritual,  summons 
the  throngs  of  its  priests  and  prelates  and  people  to  com- 
memorate in  this  splendid  basilica  another  triumph  of  the 
extension  of  the  kingdom  of  Christ,  it  is  proper  to  cast  a 
glance  backward  so  as  to  better  understand  the  way  in  which 
this  glory  has  been  achieved. 

Unlike  to-day,  it  was  a  dream,  a  delusion,  a  myth  that 
attracted  men  here  three  or  four  hundred  years  ago.  On 
the  present  site  of  Bangor  there  was  thought  to  be  a  won- 
derfully beautiful,  though  barbaric,  city  called  Norumbega. 
Even  Milton  sang  of  it.  Many  a  traveler  ascended  the 
Penobscot  in  search  of  it,  and  one  enthusiastic  writer,  whose 
account  Hakluyt  published,  told  of  its  houses  of  crystal  with 
silver  colonnades,  and  its  inhabitants  all  decked  out  in  pearls 
and  gold.  It  was  sought  for  with  an  eagerness  like  that 
which  urged  Ponce  de  Leon  and  his  followers  in  their  quest 
for  the  Fountain  of  Youth,  and,  as  late  as  1583,  Sir  Hum- 
phrey Gilbert,  reading  Hakluyt's  story  and  dreaming  only 
of  loading  his  vessels  with  silver,  carried  with  him  the  poet 
Parmenius  to  sing  its  praises.  But  when  Champlain  came 
to  Bangor  and  found  only  the  squalid  wigwams  of  the  sav- 
ages, the  myth  evaporated,  though  traces  of  it  still  lingered 
for  fifty  or  sixty  years,  and  the  Dutch,  and  even  the  famous 
Captain  John  Smith,  who  came  to  Maine,  continued  to  dream 
of  Norumbega. 

There  was,  of  course,  a  real  Norumbega,  but  it  was  a  ter- 
ritory, not  a  city.  Sir  Humphrey  Gilbert's  charter  described 
it  as  extending  from  the  thirtieth  to  the  sixtieth  degree  north 
latitude,  so  that  it  took  in  not  only  Massachusetts,  which 
seems  to  preempt  the  title  by  its  Norumbega  Park  in  Boston, 


6  Three  Historical  Events  in  Maine. 

but  even  New  York.  Indeed,  it  included  almost  the  whole 
coast  from  Florida  to  Labrador.  But  popular  fancy  seems 
to  have  restricted  it  to  Maine  by  placing  its  chief  city  on 
the  great  and  beautiful  river,  the  Penobscot,  whose  name, 
says  one  writer,  might  well  describe  the  entire  State.  But 
its  limitations  and  locality  do  not  concern  us  now.  What 
interests  us  is:  When  did  Christianity  come  to  Norumbega? 

Apart  from  the  shadowy  traditions  that  missionaries  from 
the  Island  of  Saints  came  out  to  the  Isles  of  the  West,  to 
Hy  Brasil,  the  Wooded  Land  of  which  the  Irish  bards  loved 
to  sing,  it  is  beyond  doubt  that  Catholicity  (for  no  other 
form  of  Christianity  existed)  was  preached  in  this  part  of 
the  world,  and  perhaps  on  this  very  spot,  nearly  looo  years 
ago. 

In  the  Fenway  of  Boston  stands  a  bronze  figure  of  Lief, 
the  son  of  Eric,  who  was  sent  out  here  from  Greenland  to 
found  a  Christian  colony,  though  the  authorities,  in  accept- 
ing the  statue,  protested  they  did  not  mean  to  imply  by  the 
situation  of  the  monument  that  it  was  there  he  landed.  That 
he  came  is  admitted,  but  where  he  went  or  what  he  did  to 
convert  the  natives  we  cannot  say.  The  colony  endured, 
however,  in  some  way  or  other,  and  fifty  years  after  the 
coming  of  Lief,  Bishop  John,  of  Skalholt,  in  Iceland,  who  is 
said  to  have  been  an  Irishman,  ended  his  life  here  in  suffer- 
ing and  torture,  though  that,  like  so  many  other  things,  is 
questioned;  but  one  fact  is  beyond  doubt,  viz.,  that  a  century 
later  the  Bishop  of  Gardar  in  Greenland,  "  full  of  mission- 
ary zeal,  accompanied  the  ships  of  his  seafaring  flock  and 
reached  the  land  known  in  the  Sagas  of  the  North  by  the 
name  of  Vinland,"  which  was  part,  at  least,  of  the  Norum- 
bega of  later  times.  Here  the  bishop  died,  but  how  far  to 
the  north  or  to  the  south  either  he  or  his  predecessor  carried 
the  cross  we  are  unable  to  determine,  though  we  know  that 
the  venturesome  Norsemen  were  in  Labrador,  Newfound- 
land and  New  England,  and  perhaps  the  vestiges  of  Cath- 


Three  Historical  Events  in  Maine.  7 

olic  symbols  found  among  the  savages  of  Ste.  Croix  in  Maine 
five  centuries  later  might  be  traced  to  that  source. 

But  besides  this  remote  preaching  of  the  Gospel,  Maine 
has  had  other  points  of  contact  with  Catholicity  in  more 
recent  years.  The  Cabots,  who  were  sent  out  by  the  Cath- 
olic King  of  England,  Henry  VII.,  and  who  very  probably 
sailed  over  the  Gulf  of  Maine,  were  Catholics,  of  course. 

The  Catholic  Verazzano  came  here  in  1524  and  mapped 
out  the  coast,  and  was  moreover  very  probably  in  the  next 
expedition  with  Rut,  in  1527,  when  he  lost  his  life  among 
the  savages.  It  is  this  voyage  which  is  of  particular  im- 
portance to  us,  as  historians  tell  us  that  the  "  Mary  of  Guil- 
ford returned  by  the  coasts  of  Newfoundland,  Cape  Breton 
and  Norumbega,  entering  the  ports  of  those  regions,  land- 
ing and  examining  the  condition  of  the  country,"  furnishing 
us  thus  with  the  account  of  the  first  actual  landing  of  the 
white  man  in  this  part  of  the  world,  at  least  in  modern 
times;  and  what  is  of  still  more  absorbing  interest  to  us, 
telling  us  that  with  them  was  a  "  canon  of  St.  Paul's  in 
London,  a  learned  man  and  a  mathematician,"  who  had 
placed  his  scientific  attainments,  as  well  as  his  priestly  office, 
at  the  service  of  the  expedition.  So  that  we  have  the  very 
solid  assurance  that  in  1527,  a  priest  ministered  in  Maine, 
offered  the  Holy  Sacrifice  and  preached  the  Gospel  in  the 
English  tongue. 

Again,  the  Portuguese-Spaniard,  Esteban  Gomez,  was 
here  and  called  the  Penobscot  the  Rio  Grande  and  the  Rio 
Hermoso — the  Great  and  the  Beautiful  River — and  the  land 
around  it  the  land  of  Gomez.  Roberval's  daring  sailor, 
Allefonsce,  likewise  came  to  Maine,  and  the  Franciscan  friar, 
Thevet,  whom  some  writers  seek  to  discredit,  explored  and 
described  the  country,  and  told  how  the  French  were  already 
settled  there ;  a  statement  which  naturally  angers  the  parti- 
sans of  England's  claims.  He,  too,  must  have  preached  the 
Gospel  to  his  countrymen.     Others  might  be  cited,  but  this 


8  Three  Historical  Events  in  Maine. 

is  enough  to  show  that  Catholicity  is  not  an  alien  power  in 
Maine. 

There  were  Catholics,  of  course,  in  the  ill-fated  ships  of 
Sir  Humphrey  Gilbert,  which  in  1583  were  engulfed  in  the 
waves  of  the  Atlantic  off  Cape  Race;  for  it  was  a  Catholic 
expedition  to  colonize  Norumbega.  It  was  planned  by  two 
Catholic  noblemen,  Gerard  and  Peckham,  who  proposed  to 
send  out  1000  Catholics  to  the  continent  of  Europe  and  from 
thence  transport  them  to  America  to  escape  the  persecutions 
then  raging  in  England.  "  All  the  papists,"  a  spy  reported, 
"  were  praying  for  its  success."  But  Gilbert's  disaster  and 
death  checked,  though  it  did  not  completely  crush  the  ardor 
of  those  who  were  promoting  the  enterprise.  Twenty  years 
later  the  project  was  revived  by  Lord  Arundell  of  Wardour, 
but  failed  because  of  the  opposition  of  the  famous  Jesuit, 
Father  Parsons,  who  believed  its  purpose  impossible  of  ac- 
complishment. 

Of  course,  all  of  these  historical  findings  are  to  a  certain 
extent  vague  and  unsatisfactory,  but  in  the  summer  of  1612, 
over  on  the  beach  of  the  Grand  Manan,  at  what  is  now 
known  as  Whitehead  Island,  there  might  have  been  seen  a 
pale  face  in  the  garb  of  a  savage,  kneeling  at  the  feet  of  a 
priest,  and  making  his  confession.  He  was  a  Frenchman 
who  had  fled  from  the  settlement  of  Acadia  and  was  living 
among  the  Indians.  The  Jesuit  missionary  Biard  had  gone 
in  pursuit  of  him,  and  when  the  unhappy  man  was  reconciled 
to  God,  an  altar  was  built  on  the  shore,  and,  amid  a  group  of 
bedizened  soldiers  and  painted  savages,  Mass  was  celebrated, 
at  which  the  restored  fugitive  made  his  Easter  Communion. 
This  is  the  first  explicit  record  we  have  of  the  celebration 
of  the  Divine  mysteries  on  the  borders  of  the  present 
State  of  Maine. 

A  few  days  afterward  the  same  great  missionary  stood 
at  an  altar  in  front  of  a  little  stockade  on  the  St.  John's 
River.    It  was  early  morning  and  the  occupants  of  the  fort. 


Three  Historical  Events  in  Maine.  9 

as  well  as  the  men  from  the  ship,  knelt  together  on  the 
strand  to  assist  at  Holy  Mass.  In  spite  of  this  solemn 
beginning,  the  day  almost  ended  in  bloodshed.  From  there 
the  travelers  sailed  along  the  coast  and  entered  the  Kennebec, 
where  Father  Biard  came  ashore  and  celebrated  the  Holy 
Mysteries,  but  was  near  being  murdered  at  the  altar  by 
the  Indians.  The  site  of  this  interesting  event  it  has  been 
impossible  to  determine. 

This  voyage  of  the  priest  seems  like  a  prelude  to  what 
happened  in  the  following  year,  when  Fathers  Biard,  Masse 
and  Ouentin  abandoned  the  colony  of  Acadia,  and  estab- 
lished the  ]\Iission  of  Saint  Sauveur  at  Bar  Harbor.  "  In 
that  place,"  says  the  Protestant  Bancroft,  "  the  Indians  re- 
garded Father  Biard  as  a  messenger  of  heaven.  They  gath- 
ered around  the  cross,  which  was  erected  in  the  center  of 
the  village,  and  under  the  summer  sun  when  Mass  was 
offered  and  the  Office  sung  the  Roman  religion  appropriated 
the  soil  of  Maine." 

But,  alas  !  the  settlement  was  not  long-lived.  The  pirate 
Argall  of  Virginia  entered  the  harbor  with  a  man-of-war, 
laid  the  village  in  ashes  and  carried  away  two  of  the  priests 
to  hang  them  in  Virginia.  Providence  intervened,  however, 
and  they  were  not  hanged,  but  were  driven  by  the  tempests 
across  the  wade  Atlantic,  and  after  many  sufferings,  and 
incidentally  twice  saving  their  enemies  from  the  gallows, 
reached  their  native  land;  one  of  them  returning,  however, 
to  labor  and  to  die  in  the  wilds  of  America;  and  it  is  worthy 
of  note  that  on  the  banks  of  the  St.  Lawrence,  near  Quebec, 
there  stands  a  monument  to  the  memory  of  Enemond  Masse, 
one  of  the  priests  who  first  came  ashore  at  Bar  Harbor  in 
1613. 

It  was  at  this  time  that  the  disputes  about  the  limits  of 
Acadia  began.  Its  extent  was  so  vast  and  so  vague,  stretch- 
ing as  it  did  even  below  what  is  now  New  York,  and  going 
west  from  Nova  Scotia  to  the  Kennebec,  that  ceaseless  wars 


lO  Three  Historical  Events  in  Maine. 

ensued  between  the  claimants.  The  territory  between  the 
Penobscot  and  the  Kennebec,  especially,  became  the  dark 
and  bloody  ground  where  French  and  English  fought  for 
more  than  a  century;  the  English  winning  at  last,  when 
Wolfe  and  Montcalm  met  in  death  on  the  Plains  of  Abraham, 
only  to  lose  the  territory  of  Maine  twenty  years  later  in 
the  American  Revolution. 

During  the  period  which  immediately  followed  the  de- 
struction of  the  Jesuit  mission  at  Bar  Harbor,  devoted 
Capuchin  monks  exposed  their  lives  for  the  salvation  of  the 
red  men's  souls;  but  the  work  was  desultory,  hampered 
by  quarrels  among  the  French,  and  was  not  crowned  with 
any  measure  of  success  until  its  first  organizers  returned 
in  1688. 

But  before  that,  in  1646,  at  the  same  time  that  Isaac 
Jogues  was  sent  by  his  superiors  to  meet  a  bloody  death 
among  the  Iroquois  of  the  Mohawk,  Gabriel  Druillettes  came 
to  the  Abenakis  in  Maine.  Not  from  the  Indians,  however, 
but  from  the  nearby  English  was  danger  to  be  apprehended. 
Druillettes,  however,  went  down  as  a  messenger  of  peace  to 
the  Puritans  of  Massachusetts,  who  had  put  a  price  upon 
the  head  of  every  priest,  and  especially  every  Jesuit,  who 
should  enter  their  borders.  But  the  diplomatic  character 
with  which  he  was  invested  served  to  protect  him,  while  his 
eloquence,  learning  and  virtue  quite  captivated  those  bitter 
enemies  of  the  faith.  The  principal  men  among  them,  nota- 
bly John  Eliot,  even  manifested  affection  for  him,  enter- 
tained him  in  their  houses  and  treated  him  with  the  greatest 
respect.  The  ministers  discussed  religion  with  him,  the 
council  listened  to  his  proposals,  and,  though  his  political 
mission  failed,  he  returned  in  safety  to  his  Indians,  and  we 
hear  of  him  later,  far  out  on  the  Great  Lakes,  and  there,  a 
thousand  and  more  miles  away,  he  spent  his  last  days  in 
leading  those  savage  tribes  in  the  ways  of  salvation,  thus 
giving  to  Maine  another  link  with   the   Catholicity  of  the 


Three  Historical  Events  in  Maine.  II 

country  at  large — one  of  the  first  great  apostles  of  the  East 
preaching  the  Gospel  in  the  then  farthest  West. 

But  the  most  impressive  and  the  most  majestic  figure 
that  appears  in  those  days  is  that  of  the  hero  who  may  be 
one  day  the  patron  saint  of  Maine,  Father  Sebastian  Rasle, 
who,  by  his  thirty-five  years  of  apostolate  among  the  Indians, 
ending  by  a  bloody  death  at  the  foot  of  his  mission  cross, 
did  more  than  any  one  else  to  sow  the  seeds  of  faith  in  this 
most  northern  State  of  the  Union. 

In  spite  of  himself  and  merely  because  he  was  a  priest  he 
was  the  storm  center  of  the  struggle  between  the  French 
and  English.  He  was  calumniated  and  maligned,  tracked 
like  a  wild  beast,  a  price  was  put  upon  his  head,  and  he  was 
finally  slain  for  no  other  reason  than  that  he  kept  his  Indians 
in  that  faith  which  was  dearer  to  him  and  to  them  than 
life,  and  which  they,  true  to  his  memory,  in  spite  of  persecu- 
tions and  poverty,-  have  never  relinquished, 

A  distinguished  professor  in  his  own  land,  where  honor 
awaited  him  in  the  domain  of  letters,  he  came  as  a  mission- 
ary to  this  country  in  1689.  The  day  of  his  arrival  was 
October  13th,  almost  coinciding  with  what  was  intended  to 
be  the  date  of  this  celebration.  Eager  to  learn  their  lan- 
guage as  rapidly  as  possible,  and  at  any  cost,  he  buried  him- 
self in  the  squalid  wigwams  of  the  Canadian  Indians,  and 
the  next  year  found  him  out  where  Druillettes  had  been  be- 
fore him,  in  the  wilds  of  Illinois,  and  after  four  years  of 
toil  and  sacrifice  and  danger  there,  coming  back  to  complete 
his  immolation  of  twenty-seven  years  of  heroic  labor  in 
Maine  by  a  martyr's  death. 

Two  thousand  miles  of  wilderness,  where  every  step 
meant  the  peril  of  death  by  starvation,  exposure  to  wild 
beasts  and  wilder  men,  seemed  the  merest  trifles  for  those 
men  of  gigantic  spiritual  stature  who  were  our  first  apostles. 
Equal  to  it,  perhaps,  in  another  way  in  its  apostolic  sejf- 
sacrifice  was  the  task  which  he  assumed  of  remaining  a  life 


12  Three  Historical  Events  in  Maine. 

time  hidden  away  in  the  repulsiveness  and  degradation  of 
Indian  encampments,  where  for  a  man  of  his  sensitive 
nature  every  instant  brought  its  loathsome  and  disgusting 
trial. 

Norridgewalk,  or  Norridgewok,  was  his  settlement.  It 
was  the  cradle  of  Maine's  Catholicity.  Around  him  he  gath- 
ered a  Christian  people,  and,  aided  by  his  friends  in  distant 
France,  and  by  his  own  exceptional  skill  at  all  kinds  of  handi- 
craft, he  adorned  his  little  chapel^  which  he  used  to  boast 
was  as  beautiful  as  any  church  in  the  old  world,  with  its 
rich  vestments,  his  throng  of  Indian  altar  boys  in  the  sanctu- 
ary in  cassock  and  surplice,  his  congregation  chanting  the 
Mass  and  flocking  to  the  church  every  day  in  the  week  at 
the  sound  of  the  bell  that  swung  in  his  rustic  tower.  There, 
on  the  roads  that  led  from  the  village  were  chapels  to  Our 
Lady  and  the  Archangel  St.  Michael,  where  the  Indian 
braves  knelt  to  pray  when  they  went  out  to  war  or  the  hunt. 
He  had  made  his  people  devout  and  practical  Catholics. 
Whittier  describes  the  place  in  Mog  Megone: 

On  the  brow  of  a  hill  which  slopes  to  meet 
The  flowing  river,  and  bathe  its  feet, 
'Mid  the  bare-washed  and  drooping  grass 
And  the  creeping  vine  as  the  waters  pass — 
A   rude,   unshapely   chapel   stands, 
Built  in  that  wild  by  unskilful  hands; 
Yet  the  traveler  knows  it  is  a  place  of  prayer. 
For  the  holy  sign  of  the  cross  is  there; 
And  should  he  chance  at  that  place  to  be, 
•    Of  a  Sabbath  morn,  or  some  hallowed  day, 
When  prayers  are  made  and  masses  said, 
Some  for  the  living  and  some  for  the  dead, 
Well  might  that  traveler  start  to  see 
The  tall,  dark  forms  that  take  their  way 
From  the  birch  canoe  on  the  river-shore 


Three  Historical  Events  in  Maine.  13 

,     And  the  forest  path  to  the  chapel  door, 
And  marvel  to  mark  the  naked  knees 
And  the  dusky  foreheads  bending  there; 
And  stretching  his  long,  thin  arms  over  these 
In  blessing  and   in  prayer. 
Like  a  shrouded  spectre,  pale  and  tall, 
In  his  coarse  white  vesture — Father  Rasle. 

The  picture  is  incorrect  to  some  extent,  but  it  illustrates 
liow  the  great  missionary  has  left  his  impress  on  the  litera- 
ture of  New  England. 

He  restrained  his  Indians  from  war  and  instructed  them 
in  all  the  arts  of  peace,  taught  them  to  build  their  houses 
and  to  cultivate  their  fields ;  and  made  not  a  few  of  the  chil- 
dren familiar  with  the  rudiments  of  learning.  So  thoroughly 
did  he  imbue  them  with  love  of  their  faith  that  through  all 
the  years  of  persecution,  and  in  spite  of  many  worldly  in- 
ducements to  apostatize,  these  wonderful  Indians  remained, 
with  few  exceptions,  unalterably  attached  to  their  religion. 
It  was  here  that  in  the  moments  he  could  snatch  from  the 
incessant  labors  of  his  mission  he  composed  the  great  Aben- 
aki dictionary,  which  is  one  of  the  precious  literary  treasures 
of  Harvard  University  to-day. 

Naturally  and  necessarily  his  desire  to  preserve  the  faith 
of  his  neophytes  prompted  him  to  keep  them  away  from  the 
Protestant  English  and  attached  to  the  Catholic  French.  As 
he  himself  was  French,  any  other  course  would  have  been 
treachery  to  his  fellow  countrymen.  But  race  feeling  was 
only  secondary,  and  he  could  have  eliminated  it  if  the  faith 
of  those  confided  to  him  were  secured.  Far  deeper  than  their 
hatred  of  the  FYench  was  the  loathing  of  those  early  English 
colonists  for  Catholicity  and  Catholic  priests.  It  was  suf- 
ficient for  a  priest,  and  especially  a  Jesuit,  to  be  on  their 
territory  to  be  doomed  to  death.  They  made  no  secret  of  it. 
He  m.ust  be  removed  at  any  cost,  and  they  effected  their  pur- 


14 


Three  Historical  Events  in  Maine. 


pose  in  a  way  that  unhappily  stamped  them  with  everlasting 
ignominy. 

Expedition  after  expedition  was  sent  out  to  capture  him, 
and  finally,  in  1724,  200  men  moved  against  Norridgewok. 
To  bar  the  way  against  the  invaders  and  protect  his  helpless 
people,  for  the  warriors  were  away,  the  aged  priest  advanced 
toward  the  enemy  and,  as  he  stood  beneath  the  village  cross, 
was  riddled  with  bullets,  his  body  frightfully  mangled  and 
outraged,  his  skull  crushed  and  his  white  scalp  torn  from  his 
head  and  carried  in  triumph  to  Boston.  That  hideous  trophy 
of  the  reeking  scalp  of  a  venerable  priest  nearly  seventy 
years  of  age  must  have  caused  a  shudder  when  it  was  ex- 
hibited as  a  proof  that  Father  Rasle  was  dead  and  no  longer 
to  be  feared.  The  Sacred  Host  was  desecrated,  the  holy 
vessels  defiled,  the  altar  and  chapel  reduced  to  ashes  and 
the  whole  village  left  a  heap  of  ruins.  The  precious  manu- 
script which  had  cost  so  many  years  of  labor  and  all  his 
writings  had  already  been  stolen. 

With  a  sad  heart  the  Indians,  after  the  departure  of  the 
English,  buried  the  mangled  body  of  the  priest  beneath  the 
spot  where  he  used  to  stand  at  the  altar. 

From  that  out  the  Catholicity  of  Maine  depended  upon 
the  poor  hunted  Abenakis,  and  we  should  recall  to  their 
eternal  honor  that,  although  English  trading  houses  now  sup- 
planted the  French  missions,  yet  more  than  fifty  years  after 
the  murder  of  Father  Rasle,  when  General  Washington  sent 
an  envoy  to  the  tribe  to  induce  them  to  fight  against  their  old 
English  foes,  they  consented  under  one  condition,  viz.,  that 
a  Catholic  priest  should  be  sent  to  them  to  enable  them  to 
practice  their  religion. 

It  is  equally  gratifying  to  be  able  to  record  that  the 
request  was  complied  with,  and,  what  is  most  amazing,  the 
Court  of  Massachusetts  declared  its  satisfaction  with  the 
religious  instincts  of  the  Indians,  and  promised  to  provide 
a  priest.     What  a  change   from   the  persecution   of  a   few 


Three  Historical  Events  in  Maine.  15 

^ears  before!  French  chaplains  from  the  fleet  of  Rocham- 
beau  put  themselves  immediately  in  communication  with 
these  abandoned  but  faithful  Indians,  but  unhappily  could 
not  remain  permanently  among  them. 

Another  fifty  years  rolled  by,  Bishop  Carroll  and  his  suc- 
cessors doing  what  they  could  for  these  wandering  children 
of  the  forests,  many  of  whom,  however,  lapsed  into  their 
original  savagery  for  want  of  priests,  and  some  even  of 
Father  Rasle's  Norridgewoks  yielding  to  the  ministers  who 
were  sent  among  them,  while  the  faith  was  making  only  a 
fitful  progress  among  the  white  population.  Slowly,  very 
slowly,  it  went  on,  and  at  the  end  of  those  fifty  years  Cath- 
olicity in  Maine  was  helpless,  suspected  and  despised.  Nev- 
ertheless, even  then  a  bishop  was  sent  to  complete  the  work 
begun  so  long  before;  but  that  evoked  another  storm.  For 
coincidently  with  this  nomination  of  a  bishop  in  Maine  and 
of  others  elsewhere  the  long  pent  up  bigotry  of  Know- 
Nothingism  leaped  into  a  conflagration  over  a  large  part  of 
the  country.  In  Maine,  children  were  driven  from  the 
schools  and  threatened  with  imprisonment  for  not  equiva- 
lently  denying  their  faith.  The  squalid  little  chapels,  erected 
at  the  cost  of  untold  sacrifices,  were  plundered  or  blown  up 
or  burned.  Dastardly  acts,  which  in  our  days  would  be 
inconceivable,  were  perpetrated,  but  humanity  forgot  itself 
in  the  outrage  committed  against  a  man  whose  name  is  every- 
where held  in  benediction,  the  saintly,  the  beloved  Father 
Bapst. 

I  knew  him  well,  both  in  the  full  vigor  of  his  beautiful 
manhood  and  afterward,  when  age  and  suffering,  and  possi- 
bly the  consequences  of  the  barbarous  treatment  of  which  he 
had  been  the  victim  in  his  early  days,  had  shaken  the  facul- 
ties of  his  mind,  without,  however,  weakening  in  the  least 
the  affection  of  his  tender  and  loving  heart;  and  I  have 
never  known  any  one  better  fitted  to  win  souls  to  God  than 
that   singularly  handsome,   attractive   and   holy  man,   whose 


1 6  Three  Historical  Events  in  Maine. 

countenance,  lighted  up  with  its  perpetual  sunshine,  beamed 
a  welcome  on  all  who  approached  him.  The  wonder  of  it  is 
why,  if  hatred  of  his  sacred  character  inflamed  the  fury  of 
his  barbarous  persecutors  to  frenzy,  admiration  for  his  win- 
ning and  charming  personality  did  not  restrain  their  fury. 

The  night  of  October  14,  1854,  is  a  dark  one  in  the  annals 
of  Maine,  when  a  mad  but  legalized  mob  of  miscreants  in  a 
town  we  shall  not  name,  for  it  has  long  since  atoned  for  the 
deed  by  years  of  shame  and  reproach — Bangor  particularly 
condemning  it — dragged  the  man  of  God  from  his  conceal- 
ment, and,  amid  howls  of  execration,  coupled  with  indecencies 
of  word  and  deed,  stripped  him  naked,  drenched  him  with 
tar  from  head  to  foot,  carried  him  on  a  rail  to  the  woods 
outside  the  town,  and  it  is  even  said  bound  him  to  a  tree, 
and,  heaping  brushwood  around  him,  prepared  to  burn  him 
alive,  or,  as  others  say,  to  hang  him — a  crime  which  was 
mercifully  averted,  and,  we  trust,  never  intended — and  then 
making  him  run  the  gauntlet  just  as  the  savages  did  with 
their  victims,  and  leaving  him  crippled  and  mangled  and 
almost  dead,  bade  him  depart  or  lose  his  life  as  a  penalty  of 
refusal. 

On  that  night  of  horror,  however,  dawned  a  glorious 
morning,  when,  to  the  amazement  of  friend  and  foe.  Father 
Bapst,  vested  in  his  priestly  robes,  but  with  the  marks  of 
the  outrage  still  visible  upon  him,  was  seen  at  the  altar  of 
his  humble  church,  dragging  himself  in  agony  through  the 
rites  of  the  Holy  Sacrifice,  not  to  defy  his  enemies,  but  to 
let  his  flock  fulfil  their  obligation  of  public  worship,  and  to 
restrain  them  from  any  untoward  act  of  vengeance.  He  suc- 
ceeded, though  the  little  sanctuary  where  he  stood  that  Sun- 
day morning  was  soon  after  a  heap  of  ashes. 

It  is  this  man  who  particularly  belongs  to  you;  a  hero 
whose  spirit  was  the  same  as  that  which  throbbed  in  the 
heart  of  his  martyred  brother  in  religion.  Father  Sebastian 
Rasle,  who,  130  years  before,  fell  at  the  foot  of  his  mission 


Three  Historical  Events  in  Maine.  17 

cross.  Well  may  you  rejoice  in  your  association  with  him; 
and  fittingly  are  the  shreds  of  the  garments  that  were  torn 
from  his  body  on  that  wild  night  of  October,  fifty-two  years 
ago,  when  he  faced  unflinchingly  a  horrible  death  by  fire, 
placed,  still  smeared  with  tar,  in  the  cornerstone  of  this 
sacred  edifice,  which  is  his  monument  and  his  glory. 

Since  then  the  Church  has  prospered.  Ten  years  after- 
ward, in  spite  of  the  conflagration  that  swept  over  the  city  of 
Portland,  Maine  could  count  its  twenty-nine  priests,  its 
forty-five  churches  and  its  four  Indian  missions;  and  to-day, 
irrespective  of  the  extensive  territory  of  New  Hampshire, 
which  ecclesiastically  once  belonged  to  it,  and  where  Cath- 
olicity is  energetic  and  progressive,  there  are  120  priests,  more 
than  that  number  of  churches  and  a  growing  Catholic  popu- 
lation already  over  loo^ooo.  Such  is  the  history  of  the 
Church  of  Maine,  laid  in  the  blood  of  martyrs  and  destined, 
if  it  be  true  to  its  traditions,  to  do  great  things  for  humanity 
and  God. 

That  this  destiny  is  being  accomplished  we  have  only  to 
lift  our  eyes  to  see.  The  land  is  covered  with  multiplied 
and  splendid  assurances  of  the  growth  of  Catholicity,  and 
conspicuous  among  them  is  the  magnificent  temple  which  is 
erected  on  the  very  spot  where  once  the  mythical  city  dazzled 
the  imagination  of  the  world  with  the  riches  it  was  supposed 
to  contain;  or,  better  still,  it  is  in  the  spiritual  center  of  the 
land  whence  for  many  years  there  poured  out  upon  the 
wandering  tribes  greater  riches  than  the  fabulous  Norum- 
bega  could  ever  afford.  It  towers  above  the  world  to-day, 
the  first  object  to  meet  the  eye  of  the  traveler  who  ascends 
the  beautiful  river,  a  monument  to  the  heroism  of  those  who 
planted  the  faith  in  Maine;  a  tribute  to  the  present  genera- 
tion's love  of  God  and  truth;  and  a  command  to  those  who 
come  after  to  make  the  future  worthy  of  the  present  and 
past. 

Well  may  you  rejoice  in  what  you  have  accomplished.    To 


l8  Three  Historical  Events  in  Maine. 

have  contril)utcd  ever  so  little  to  such  a  work  is  a  reason  for 
congratulation,  but  to  have  set  yourselves  deliberately  to  a 
task  which  implied  so  many  years  of  privation  and  suffering 
and  sacrifice ;  to  ^have  continued  undaunted  when  financial 
ruin  strewed  the  ground  with  wrecks;  and  not  to  have  been 
unduly  elated  when  prosperity  teemed  with  its  abundance; 
to  have  persevered  in  your  labors  out  of  love  for  God  and 
your  religion  until  you  saw  it  in  all  its  complete  and  perfect 
beauty,  entitles  you  to  all  the  joy  that  your  hearts  can  feel, 
but  whose  fulness  you  will  not  adequately  attain  until  you 
stand  in  that  other  temple,  of  w^hich  this  is  but  the  portal. 

There  is,  of  course,  one  above  all  others  who  deserves 
the  happiness  which  to-day  bestows;  the  one  who  for  two 
and  thirty  years  has  been  the  soul  of  your  work;  who  has 
borne  most  of  its  burden;  who  had  to  face  every  difficulty, 
avoid  every  disaster  and  prevent  every  defeat;  who  every 
moment  of  the  night  and  day  during  all  these  years  felt  the 
crushing  weight  of  financial  worries,  while  at  the  same  time 
meeting  the  awful  spiritual  responsibilities  of  his  office  in 
guarding  the  flock  which  the  Divine  Shepherd  had  entrusted 
to  his  care,  and  for  whose  salvation  he  has  to  answer.  How 
well  be  has  done  that  none  know  better  than  you.  That 
you  should  be  better  and  happier  is  what  he  sought,  and 
that,  besides  the  glory  given  to  the  Almighty  God,  is  the 
chief  factor  in  his  joy  to-day.  He  rejoices  because  he  has 
continued  the  work  of  his  glorious  predecessors. 

For  throughout  those  thirty-two  years,  as  well  as  through 
these  three  centuries  of  heroic  endeavor,  runs  one  purpose. 
Enunciated  when  the  first  settlers  called  their  colony  at  Bar 
Harbor  Saint  Sauveur,  it  penetrated  the  forests;  it  was  re- 
echoed in  the  mountains  and  valleys  and  along  the  mighty 
rivers  and  lakes;  it  was  repeated  in  the  squalid  wigwams 
and  at  the  council  fires;  it  was  uttered  when  Father  Rasle 
fell  in  his  blood  at  the  foot  of  the  Savior's  cross ;  it  was  the 
message  of  Father  Bapst  when  he  awaited  death,  bound  to 


Three  Historical  Events  in  Maine.  1 9 

the  trees  in  the  forest;  it  was  reiterated  in  every  act  and 
utterance  of  every  missionary  who  appealed  either  to  sav- 
agery or  civilization  during  all  that  period  of  distress  and 
trial;  and  its  replication  is  heard  from  every  stone  of  this 
sacred  edifice  which  we  are  consecrating  to-day.  Here  it 
culminates,  and  from  the  cross  that  glitters  on  its  summit 
to  the  lamp  that  glimmers  before  its  altar;  from  the  holy 
images  and  emblems  on  its  walls  and  windows,  to  the  tri- 
bunals where  the  penitent  kneels  for  pardon,  and  the  altar 
rail  where  divine  life  is  imparted,  one  fact  is  ever  before  us — 
that  it  is  Jesus  Christ  who  alone  is  the  Savior,  for  He  alone 
is  the  Light,  the  Way  and  the  Life.  He  alone  can  teach  us 
who  we  are;  He  alone  can  reveal  to  us  our  glorious  destiny; 
He  alone  can  flash  upon  our  souls  splendid  and  inspiring 
visions  of  the  land  beyond;  He  alone  can  trace  the  law  for 
us  to  follow  and  exact  its  fulfilment;  He  alone  can  give  us 
the  sacramental  grace  that  is  needed  to  achieve  the  victory 
against  the  foes  who  assail  us;  He  alone  can  save  the  in- 
dividual, the  family  and  the  State,  for  He  alone  has  made 
them. 

In  a  word,  all  the  memories  of  the  gloomy  and  terrible, 
but  triumphant  past  unite  to-day  with  happiness,  and  peace, 
and  sunlight,  and  the  glory  which  the  present  and  the  future 
seem  to  promise,  declaring  that  for  us  individually  as  men, 
and  collectively  as  a  nation,  salvation  can  come  only  from 
that  Christianity  which,  just  as  it  lifted  the  savage  who  once 
roamed  these  hills  out  of  his  degradation,  so  it  alone  can  pre- 
vent the  world  from  sinking  into  it  again.  It  is  Christianity 
which  has  created  and  fostered  and  developed  our  present 
civilization,  of  which  we  are  so  proud,  but  whose  origin  we 
are  exposed  to  forget.  We  must  bear  in  mind  that  if  Chris- 
tianity perishes,  civilization  must  likewise  die. 

This  teaching  of  Christ  and  His  divinity  and  of  His 
power  to  save  is  especially  needed  here.  Dirigo — I  direct,  I 
guide — is  the  motto  of  Maine.     It  is  the  expression  of  an 


20  Three  Historical  Events  in  Maine. 

ideal  that  is  noble  and  inspiring,  but  at  the  same  time  almost 
proud  and  presumptuous  in  its  intent,  for  it  implies  an  abso- 
lute knowledge  of  what  is  right,  and  a  fearless  determina- 
tion to  defend  it.  Upon  Maine,  therefore,  it  is  especially  in- 
cumbent to  make  the  true  and  genuine  principles  of  Chris- 
tianity penetrate  the  lives  of  its  people,  sanctify  its  house- 
holds, and  inspire  the  framing  and  enforcement  of  its  laws. 

This  is  especially  necessary  in  these  days  when  once 
fervent  Christian  churches  are  being  disrupted,  when 
churches  are  empty,  when  the  Holy  Book  is  reviled  or  tossed 
aside,  even  by  those  who  profess  to  be  ministers  of  the  Gos- 
pel, when  Christian  morality  is  not  only  trampled  upon, 
but  almost  unknown,  and  when  mighty  armies  have  to  be 
employed  to  keep  even  the  semblance  of  peace. 

To  help  to  achieve  that  end  is  the  work  especially  oi 
Catholics,  not  merely  in  building  edifices,  whether  magnifi- 
cent like  this  one,  or  humble  like  so  many  others,  wherein 
God  is  worshipped  and  divine  truth  taught,  but  above  all 
by  the  spiritual  upbuilding  of  upright  and  holy  lives,  which 
will  be  more  beautiful  even  than  this  glorious  temple ;  for  it, 
after  all,  is  only  an  instrument  to  that  end.  This  will  make 
you  true  and  ardent  co-operators  with  Christ  in  establishing 
and  increasing  the  peace  and  happiness  and  greatness  of  your 
country,  while  accomplishing  at  the  same  time  your  own 
salvation.  You  will  thus  create  on  the  banks  of  the  Penob- 
scot a  spiritual  city,  which  will  make  the  gold  and  silver  of 
the  ancient  myth  seem  only  faint  symbols  of  the  spiritual 
riches  which  many  a  traveler  will  come  from  afar  to  seek, 
and  from  which  he  will  not  turn  away  in  disappointment, 
but  will  find  in  abundance  beyond  even  his  heart's  desire  all 
that  the  practice  of  true  Catholic  Christianity  is  expected  to 
produce. 


Laying  of  the  Corner-stone  of  the 
Church  of  Our   Holy  Redeemer 

Bar  Harbor,  August   11,    1907 


Laying   of  the   Corner-stone  of  the  Church 
of  Our  Holy  Redeemer 

High  above  the  rocky  fortress  of  Quebec  towers  the 
colossal  statue  of  one  of  the  greatest  heroes  of  the  sixteenth 
and  seventeenth  centuries,  Samuel  de  Champlain.  He  was 
a  daring  navigator,  whose  caravels  in  the  closing  days  of 
the  sixteenth  century  had  ploughed  the  unknown  Southern 
seas,  and  who,  even  then,  urged  the  piercing  of  the  Isthmus 
of  Panama.  He  was  a  dauntless  explorer,  who  had  taken 
up  the  work  of  the  great  Cartier,  whom  he  resembled  in 
many  ways,  especially  in  his  holy  ambition  to  extend  the 
Kingdom  of  God  by  his  discoveries.  He  led  the  way  through 
the  pathless  forests  of  North  America,  leaving  his  name 
and  his  glory  upon  the  lakes  and  rivers  and  territories.  He 
was  a  valiant  warrior  who  had  faced  death  on  many  a  field 
of  the  Old  World  and  the  New,  and  had  fought  both  savage 
and  civilized  foes;  a  singularly  sagacious  ruler  who  had 
guided  with  consummate  prudence  the  helpless  and  deserted 
colony  which  he  had  planted  on  the  St.  Lawrence,  and  he  is 
regarded  by  the  empire  which  grew  out  of  the  foundations  of 
Quebec  with  the  same  veneration  that  was  accorded  him  by 
his  devoted  followers,  who  starved  with  him  amid  the  ice 
and  snows  of  the  early  days,  who  stood  by  him  when  he  was 
driven  out  of  his  defenceless  fortress  and  returned  with  him 
to  continue  the  work  he  had  so  heroically  inaugurated. 

Properly  is  his  memory  glorified  in  the  city  which  nature 
has  made  a  citadel,  and  to  which  his  moral  sublimity  has 
given  incomparably  stronger  defences  in  the  memory  of  his 
virtues.  For  over  and  above  all  his  claims  to  admiration 
and  respect,  this  soldier,  sailor  and  ruler  was  at  all  times 
and  in  all  circumstances,  amid  the  uproar,  confusion  and 
temptations  which  his  honors,  obligations  and  occupations 
forced  upon  him,  not  only  an  unusual  but  an  extraordinarily 


24 


Three  Historical  Events  in  Maine. 


devout  and  fervent  Catholic,  the  ideal  of  many  another  heroic 
and  holy  cavalier,  whom  France  sent  out  to  the  New  World 
in  those  days.  ^He  was  a  modern  Crusader,  with  all  the 
fervor  of  those  of  olden  times.  His  life  in  the  world  resembled 
that  of  a  cenobite  in  his  cloister,  and  his  influence  and  ex- 
ample were  so  powerful  that  he  dared  to  draw  up  rules  of 
conduct  for  his  rough  sailors  on  the  high  seas,  which  read 
like  the  regulations  of  a  monastery.  His  motto  was  that 
the  salvation  of  a  single  soul  was  better  than  the  building 
of  an  empire,  and  when  dying  he  bequeathed  all  his  earthly 
possessions  for  the  honor  of  the  mother  of  the  Holy  Re- 
deemer. His  figure  dominates  the  mighty  river  St.  Law- 
rence, which  bears  out  to  the  ocean  of  the  world  his  record 
of  heroism  and  holiness,  and  his  gaze  is  directed  to  the  vast 
territory  over  which  Canada  has  extended  its  sway. 

But  what  has  he  to  do  with  Bar  Harbor?  He  has  much 
to  do  with  it.  He  was  its  discoverer.  He  had  come  out  as 
the  lieutenant  of  his  Huguenot  friend,  Du  Cast,  to  found  the 
colony  of  Acadia,  whose  Catholic  and  Calvinistic  composi- 
tion he  had  condemned  as  impossible,  not  because  he  was  a 
bigot,  but  because  he  was  a  statesman,  and  whose  geographi- 
cal position  he  pointed  out  would  infallibly  make  it  an  easy 
prey  to  its  English  enemies.  He  had  foreseen  the  disaster 
of  the  settlement  of  St.  Croix,  which  realized  its  name  in 
becoming  the  necropolis  of  the  unhappy  sailors;  he  had 
chafed  under  the  dangerous  and  ruinous  delays  of  his  irreso- 
lute and  inexperienced  commander  whom  he  was  unable  to 
influence,  but  meantime  he  had  explored  all  the  islands  and 
capes  and  bays  and  rivers  of  Maine,  and  has  left  invaluable 
records  of  the  results  of  his  observations.  He  had  gone  as 
far  as  Cape  Cod  or  Malebarre,  as  he  called  it;  he  had 
ascended  the  rivers  and  explored  the  forests  and  mountains; 
and  after  all  that  was  accomplished,  he  began,  alone  and 
unaided,  his  titanic  struggle  of  a  quarter  of  a  century,  for 
the  establishment  of  his  colony  on  the  St.  Lawrence. 


Three  Historical  Events  in  Maine.  25 

We  do  not  know  if  he  actually  landed  at  Bar  Harbor,  but 
as  he  gazed  at  the  island  from  the  sea  and  saw  its  bare 
peaks,  rising  desolate  and  drear  from  the  solitude  that 
reigned  beneath,  he  gave  it  the  name,  which  it  still  retains, 
of  risle  aux  Monts  Deserts;  and  that  fact  is  commemorated 
by  the  monument  erected  on  the  shore  by  a  number  of  dis- 
tinguished men  who,  though  aliens  to  his  race  and  religion, 
did  not  permit  their  prejudices  to  obscure  their  admiration 
for  his  greatness;  and  hence  they  have  fixed  for  all  time  on 
the  rock-ribbed  coast  of  Maine,  and  at  the  very  place  in 
which  we  are  assembled,  the  name  of  this  illustrious  Cath- 
olic hero. 

There  is  another  reason  why  the  spirit  of  Samuel  Cham- 
plain  presides  here  to-day. 

Possibly  inspired  by  the  thought  of  Columbus,  who  called 
the  land  on  which  he  first  set  foot  in  the  Western  World 
San  Salvador,  Champlain  dreamed  of  erecting  somewhere 
on  the  eastern  coast  of  America  a  splendid  basilica  in  honor 
of  the  Holy  Savior.  He  never  realized  that  ambition,  but 
it  must  have  delighted  his  heart  when  his  friends  called  the 
new  settlement  which  they  established  at  the  foot  of  Mount 
Desert,  Saint  Sauveur;  and  doubtless  he  grieved  with  them 
over  its  early  destruction.  But  had  he  been  able  to  pene- 
trate the  future  he  would  have  been  consoled  to  know  that 
the  name  Saint  Sauveur  would  be  forever  identified  with  the 
place,  and  that  in  the  course  of  time  there  would  arise  in 
the  fairest  part  of  the  island  a  basilica  under  the  title  of 
Holy  Redeemer. 

It  was  to  revive  these  memories  of  the  past  that  this  holy 
name  was  chosen,  and  as  there  is  thus  a  genesis  from  that 
rude  chapel  on  the  beach  to  the  magnificent  church  that 
stands  on  the  noblest  highway  of  Bar  Harbor,  it  may  not 
be  out  of  place  to  avail  ourselves  of  the  present  occasion  to 
recite  the  history  of  that  initial  effort  to  establish  the  faith 


26  Three  Historical  Events  in  Maine. 

in  this  part  of  the  country.  It  is  a  thrilling  chapter  in  the 
Catholicity  of  Maine. 

The  colony  of  Acadia  on  the  other  side  of  the  bay  had 
been  foredoomed  tg  failure.  It  was  more  than  half  Huguenot 
in  its  inception,  and  even  the  Catholic  colonists  had  a  Cal- 
vinistic  bias  in  their  mentality  and  way  of  life.  At  last, 
after  many  a  weary  struggle  and  defeat  in  bettering  the 
condition  of  both  the  red  men  and  the  white,  it  was  de- 
termined to  find  a  more  propitious  place  where  the  faith 
might  be  professed  and  practiced  without  molestation.  For 
that  reason  Maine  was  chosen;  and  in  1613  the  Jesuits  Biard, 
Masse  and  Quentin,  with  a  shipload  of  colonists,  landed  at 
Bar  Harbor. 

Unhappily  the  moment  was  unpropitious.  All  that  sum- 
mer of  1613  the  famous  freebooter,  Samuel  Argall  of  Vir- 
ginia, had  been  roaming  those  seas  and  seeking  for  plunder 
to  satisfy  the  ragged  and  ravenous  crew  of  sixty  adventurers 
who  lolled  over  their  cannon  and  scanned  the  horizon  for 
•prey.  The  merest  accident  in  the  lifting  of  the  fog  revealed 
to  them  the  existence  of  the  new  colony.  They  saw  the 
unsuspecting  farmers  laying  out  their  fields  and  constructing 
their  cabins.  It  was  a  rich  prize  that  had  dropped  unex- 
pectedly into  their  hands  and,  although  peace  reigned  be- 
tween France  and  England,  it  mattered  little  to  these  buc- 
caneers, and  with  flags  flying  and  cannons  booming  and 
trumpets  demanding  surrender,  they  swooped  down  on  the 
terror-stricken  settlers.  The  contest  was  one-sided  and 
short.  The  French  flag  was  hauled  down;  the  inhabitants 
were  made  prisoners;  some  were  set  adrift  in  open  boats; 
others  taken  aboard  the  English  vessel;  and,  laden  with 
booty,  Argall  set  sail  in  triumph  for  Virginia.  It  was  the 
end  of  the  French  and  Catholic  occupation  of  Bar  Harbor, 
effected  by  as  shameless  a  bit  of  piracy  as  even  those  riotous 
times  could  furnish.  The  mission  disappeared,  but  not,  how- 
ever, its  memories,  for  the  character  of  the  men  who  made 


Three  Historical  Events  in  Maine.  27 

that  first  attempt  at  placing  the  cross  of  Christ  in  this  place 
cannot  be  forgotten  by  the  CathoUcs  of  Maine. 

Among  the  missionaries  of  Saint  Sauveur  who  are 
identified  with  this  place  is  the  humble  lay  brother  Du  Thet. 
His  was  the  first  Christian  blood  to  be  shed  in  these  parts. 
Slain  in  the  brief  battle  in  the  harbor,  his  body  reposes  some- 
where on  the  shore. 

Another  was  the  glorious  Enemond  Masse,  one  of  the 
most  illustrious  of  America's  early  apostles.  He  was  flung 
into  an  open  boat  with  the  Commandant  La  Saussaye  to  drift 
without  chart  or  compass  or  provisions  on  the  stormy  At- 
lantic, and  with  the  almost  absolute  certainty  of  death  by 
drowning  or  starvation.  Happily  they  were  picked  up  by 
some  fishermen  off  the  shore  and  carried  in  safety  to  distant 
France.  La  Saussaye  never  returned  to  regain  his  lost  glory, 
but  twelve  years  after  the  great  disaster  Masse  stood  on  the 
deck  of  the  frail  vessel  by  the  side  of  the  future  martyr 
Brebeuf  and  came  with  him  to  labor  among  the  savages. 
Driven  out  a  second  time,  he  re-entered  Quebec  with  Cham- 
plain  in  1633  and,  until  the  age  of  seventy-two,  labored  un- 
ceasingly amid  hardship  and  danger  and  suffering  to  ad- 
vance the  cause  of  Christianity  and  civilization.  He  was 
no  ordinary  saint.  Though  employed  in  the  luxurious  court 
of  Henry  IV.  his  only  bed  was  a  board,  he  never  ascended 
the  altar  to  celebrate  Mass  unless  a  hair  shirt  tortured  his 
flesh;  he  scourged  himself  daily  with  cruel  disciplines,  fasted 
like  an  anchorite,  and  while  among  his  Indians  lived  with 
them  in  their  filthy  wigwams,  suffering  all  their  privations 
and  not  infrequently  w^arding  off  starvation  by  the  roots 
he  could  dig  up  in  the  forest.  He  died  worn  out  by  his  labors 
and  sufferings  and  was  buried  on  the  shores  of  the  St.  Law- 
rence near  Quebec,  where  a  grateful  and  admiring  people 
erected  a  monument  in  his  honor  which  tells  the  traveler 
that  beneath  it  rest  the  sacred  remains  of  one  of  that  first 
illustrious  cohort  which  faced  martyrdom  in  every  hideous 


28  Three  Historical  Events  in  Maine. 

shape  to  bring  the  savage  tribes  of  this  part  of  the  country 
to  the  faith  of  Jesus  Christ.  Masse  did  not  shed  his  blood, 
though  he  would  have  heard  with  joy  the  summons  to  do  so. 
He  is  Maine's  gift  to  Canada's  Christianity. 

The  adventures  of  the  two  other  Jesuits  form  one  of  the 
romances  of  American  history.  They  were  carried  off  to  be 
hanged  in  Virginia.  "  We  hourly  expected,"  wrote  Biard 
when  he  found  himself  down  on  the  James  River,  "  to  walk 
ignominiously  up  the  ladder  to  be  let  down  disgracefully  by 
the  rope."  The  governor,  in  fact,  insisted  upon  it,  but  other 
counsels  prevailed  and  Biard  and  his  companion  were  sent 
back  to  witness  the  complete  demolition  of  all  the  French 
colonies  south  of  the  St.  Lawrence.  Though  they  were 
threatened  with  death  for  refusing  to  act  as  guides, 
they  were  compelled  to  look  on  at  the  woful  spectacle. 
Recognized  by  their  compatriots,  they  were  set  down 
as  traitors  who  had  led  their  enemies  thither  for  that 
savage  work  of  hatred.  Explanations  were  impossible  and 
they  sailed  away  as  the  fire  of  the  blazing  dwellings  of  Bar 
Harbor  and  Port  Royal  illumined  the  sky,  cursed  by  their 
fellow  countrymen  and  at  the  same  time  certain  of  death  at 
the  hands  of  their  piratical  captors.  Even  to-day  they  are 
held  by  some  historians  as  guilty  of  the  baseness  of  destroy- 
ing, out  of  revenge,  the  place  where  they  had  not  been  per- 
mitted to  live. 

Of  Argall's  three  vessels  only  one  ever  reached  Virginia. 
The  second  was  shattered  on  the  rocks  off  the  coast  and  the 
third,  which  held  the  two  Jesuits,  was  driven  by  tempests 
across  the  Atlantic.  Time  and  time  again  there  was  ques- 
tion of  dropping  them  into  the  ocean  and  at  last  their  fate 
seemed  irrevocably  fixed  when  the  storm-tossed  bark  was 
compelled  to  enter  a  port  of  the  Azores.  It  was  a  Portu- 
guese possession  and  the  presence  of  two  priests  in  chains 
would  mean  death  for  their  captors.  But  they  remained 
hidden  in  the  hold  while  the  bark  was  being  searched,  and 


Three  Historical  Events  in  Maine.  29 

when  the  sails  were  hoisted  again  and  the  ship  steered  for 
the  coast  of  England,  the  pirates  regarded  with  veneration 
their  two  captives  whose  self-sacrifice  had  saved  both  ship 
and  crew.  With  joy  the  sailors  entered  the  harbor  of  Pem- 
broke in  Wales,  but  there  a  new  danger  awaited  them.  They 
were  in  a  French  vessel — the  one  they  had  seized  at  Bar 
Harbor — they  had  no  papers — they  were  evidently  free- 
booters, and  the  gallows  would  certainly  be  their  fate  at  the 
hands  of  their  own  countrymen.  In  despair  they  appealed 
to  the  Jesuits,  who  came  ashore  and  explained  the  situation. 
In  the  eyes  of  the  English  the  sailors  were  no  longer  pirates, 
but  patriots,  and  the  Jesuits  were  publicly  thanked  for  pro- 
tecting them.  They  were  feasted  by  the  municipality,  they 
discussed  religion  with  the  principal  ministers  and  were  sent 
back  in  safety  to  France.  But  there  another  storm  burst 
upon  them.  The  story  of  the  disaster  had  preceded  them  and 
had  poisoned  the  public  mind.  They  were  traitors  to  their 
country  and  merited  death.  Only  the  influence  and  explana- 
tion of  Champlain  saved  them  from  public  execration  and 
perhaps  execution.  Nine  years  afterward  Biard  died.  Had 
he  lived  only  a  little  longer  he,  too,  would  have  stood  with 
Masse  at  the  side  of  Brebeuf  and  Champlain,  and  would  have 
labored  again  among  his  degraded  and  beloved  Indians,  but 
his  work  was  done. 

Thus  Saint  Sauveur  passed  from  history,  and  only  the 
memory  of  it  remained.  What  happened  in  the  long  interval 
of  300  years  till  Catholicity  came  back  to  its  own  we  do  not 
know,  except  that  the  French  Baron  de  Castine  was  there, 
and  Cadillac,  the  founder  of  Detroit,  was  its  Seigneur;  but 
beyond  that,  nothing.  The  Capuchins  were  in  the  neighbor- 
hood for  awhile,  and  at  last  the  little  chapel  of  Saint  Sylvia, 
following  no  doubt  the  suggestion  of  its  name,  sheltered  itself 
in  the  woods,  and  almost  seemed  to  fear  to  face  the  world. 
But  times  and  men  have  changed,  and  there  is  now  no  rea- 
son why  the  successors  of  the  heroes  who  founded  Saint  Sau- 


30  Three  Historical  Events  in  Maine. 

veiir  should  choose  an  out  of  the  way  place  to  worship  God. 
Hence  it  was  that  the  splendid  church  of  the  Holy  Redeemer, 
whose  title  revives  in  an  English  form  the  ancient  and  vener- 
able name  of  Saint  Sauveur,  was  projected  to  stand  in  the 
most  beautiful  part  of  what  is  now  no  longer  an  humble  set- 
tlement, but  the  gathering  place  of  the  wealth  and  fashion 
of  the  world. 

Properly  has  such  a  site  been  chosen.  For  no  claim  goes 
further  back  than  Saint  Sauveur's,  and  none  has  around  it 
the  halo  of  such  sacred  memories.  First  in  point  of  time  and 
holiness,  it  should  be  first  in  point  of  honor. 

Its  message  to  the  world  is  a  special  and  a  glorious  one. 
For  although  every  Catholic  church  must  ever  exalt  the  name 
of  Jesus  Christ  and  inculcate  the  lesson  He  has  taught,  the 
duty  falls  with  greater  force  on  those  that  have  the  Holy 
Name  written  on  their  portals.  It  is  especially  urgent  now 
because  the  voice  of  the  Sovereign  Pontiff  is  heard  ringing 
through  the  world,  commanding  and  compelling  the  ministers 
of  God  to  make  the  claims  of  Christ  the  constant  theme  of 
their  instructions  and  exhortations,  and  also  because  simulta- 
neously with  this  movement  in  the  Church,  the  united  ener- 
gies of  the  most  determined  and  bitter  enemies  of  Christianity 
are  bent  on  obliterating  all  knowledge,  nay,  if  possible,  all 
remembrance,  of  the  life  and  doctrines  of  the  Redeemer  of 
mankind  from  the  minds  and  hearts  of  the  present  generation. 

It  is  easy  to  explain  this  antagonism,  for  there  is  nothing 
that  appeals  to  the  heart  of  man  with  such  power  as  the 
personality  of  Jesus  Christ.  He  comes  as  a  luminous  vision 
out  of  the  darkness  of  the  past.  It  is  only  a  faint  glimmer- 
ing at  first,  but  all  along  the  pathway  of  the  ages,  the  great 
prophets  of  God,  towering  aloft  in  their  exalted  sanctity,  are 
stationed  to  call  out  to  the  slumbering  nations  to  lift  up  their 
eyes  and  see  the  glory  with  which  the  earth  is  being  il- 
lumined. Clearer  and  more  distinct  the  beauty  and  power 
and  majesty  of  His  countenance  is  revealed,  as  time  con- 


Three  Historical  Events  in  Maine.  3I 

tinues  on  its  course;  and  when  at  last  He  blesses  the  earth 
by  His  presence  with  all  the  light  of  the  now-verified  pro- 
phecies upon  Him,  He  appears  as  the  fairest  of  the  children 
of  men,  crowned  with  every  gracious  and  lovely  gift  that  can 
adorn  humanity.  He  is  tender  and  sweet  and  compassionate ; 
He  is  radiant  with  holiness,  and  points  the  way  from  the 
depths  of  sin  to  the  most  transcendent  sanctity.  The  multi- 
tudes forget  the  necessities  of  life,  and  follow  Him  into  the 
desert  to  listen'  to  the  music  of  His  words,  and  to  feed  on 
the  sweetness  of  His  lips  that  distill  honey  and  the  honey- 
comb. All  nature  does  His  bidding;  the  sea  grows  solid  be- 
neath His  feet,  and  the  storm  is  stilled;  strength  returns  to 
the  palsied  limbs,  and  sight  to  the  darkened  eye,  and  even 
the  sepulchres  give  up  their  dead.  The  Angelic  hosts  sing 
their  canticles  of  joy  above  His  crib  at  Bethlehem;  a  heavenly 
splendor  illumines  Him  on  Mt.  Thabor;  in  majesty  and 
power  He  rises  from  the  tomb,  and  amid  the  radiant  armies 
of  heaven  He  ascends  from  earth  to  take  possession  of  the 
kingdom  He  has  won  for  mankind.  But  best  of  all,  the 
deepest  darkness  of  Calvary  in  which  He  dies  becomes  His 
greatest  glory,  and  His  cross  of  ignominy  is  the  instrument 
with  which  He  conquers  the  world. 

But  that  is  not  all.  He  is  not  only  Man  but  God;  He  is 
the  Second  Person  of  the  Adorable  Trinity;  He  is  the  ever- 
lasting, omnipotent  One,  the  Lord  and  Master  and  Ruler  of 
the  Universe ;  the  Creator  by  whom,  and  in  whom,  all  things 
were  made,  and  before  whom  all  creatures  in  heaven  and 
earth  must  bow.  He  is  the  Alpha  and  the  Omega,  the  be- 
ginning and  the  end,  from  whom  all  things  derive  and  to 
whom  they  all  return ;  Jesus  Christ,  the  Lord  God,  yesterday, 
to-day  and  forever.  Well  may  we  echo  the  indignant  and 
almost  angry  cry  of  St.  Paul :  "  Let  him  who  loveth  not  Jesus 
Christ  be  anathema." 

On  one  of  the  loftiest  peaks  of  the  Andes,  on  the  frontiers 
of  Chile  and  Argentina,  stands  a  colossal  statue  of  the  Di- 


32  Three  Historical  Events  in  Maine. 

vine  Redeemer.  It  was  erected  as  a  perpetual  guarantee  of 
friendship  between  the  two  nations,  a  barrier  against  war 
and  bloodshed ;  a  divine  appeal,  that  if  ever  they  are  aroused 
to  rage  and  fury  against  each  other,  the  waves  of  passion 
might  break  at  the  feet  of  the  Prince  of  Peace. 

Happy  would  we  be  if  here  at  this  gateway  of  the  ocean, 
upon  the  lofty  hill  that  towers  above  us,  there  were  some 
such  splendid  memorial  of  Christ  dominating  the  tumultuous 
ocean  that  breaks  on  the  shore,  as  well  as  the  restless  billows 
of  social  and  political  discontent  that  menace  ruin  in  the 
land  beyond.  For  we  must  not  forget  that  it  is  only  His 
law  that  can  ensure  peace  and  permanency  to  a  nation.  The 
apostacy  from  Christianity  cannot  be  anything  but  an  ap- 
palling menace  to  civilization. 

Such  a  monument  will  in  all  probability  never  be  erected 
there,  but  more  eloquent  lessons  will  be  taught  by  the  church 
which  is  to  be  here  at  the  base  of  the  mountain.  Every  stone 
of  it  will  preach  its  sermon  to  the  world.  Every  sign,  and 
symbol,  and  ceremony  will  appeal  to  those  who  are  outside 
its  walls.  Its  pulpit  will  plead;  its  prayers  will  impetrate; 
its  sacraments  will  illumine;  and,  above  all,  its  unceasing 
sacrifice  will  propitiate  the  anger  of  God.  Nay,  its  people 
will  be  other  Christs.  By  the  divine  life  which  they  will  re- 
ceive at  the  altar  they  will  co-operate  with  Him  to  whom 
this  church  is  consecrated.  Their  moral  principles,  which 
are  His,  will  give  stability  to  the  constitutions  of  their  coun- 
try; the  possession  of  sanctifying  grace  will  give  a  divine 
character  to  their  earthly  lives  which  will  be  but  a  prepara- 
tion for  the  eternal  blessedness  they  shall  possess,  when  they 
shall  see,  face  to  face,  the  Divine  Person  whom,  behind  the 
veil  of  faith,  they  adored  and  served  on  earth  as  the  Holy 
Redeemer. 


The  Re-consecration  of 
the    Rasle    Monument 

Norridgewok,  August    23,    1907 


The  Re-consecration  of  the  Rasle 
Monument 

It  is  200  years  ago  since  Catholicity  first  came  to  Nor- 
ridgewok  or  Narantsouac,  as  it  was  then  called.  In  1646 
two  Jesuit  priests  left  the  protecting  walls  of  Quebec  to  go 
out  into  the  wilderness  to  preach  the  Gospel  to  the  Indians. 
One  was  Isaac  Jogues,  who  with  the  ever  memorable  words 
upon  his  lips :  "  Ibo  sed  non  redibo,  I  go  but  I  shall  not  re- 
turn," calmly  and  joyfully  went  forward  to  his  bloody  death 
on  the  Mohawk.  The  other  was  the  glorious  Gabriel  Druil- 
lettes,  who  carried  his  canoe  around  the  seething  cataract  of 
the  Chaudiere,  where  that  river  leaps  over  the  scarred  rocks 
into  the  St.  Lawrence,  paddled  up  to  its  source,  and,  crossing 
to  the  Kennebec,  descended  the  stream  until  it  brought  him 
to  the  sea,  the  first  white  man  to  make  the  perilous  journey. 

He  was  the  first  missionary  at  Norridgewok.  We  have 
told  his  wonderful  story  before,  and  it  is  sufficient  to  recall 
how,  after  laboring  here,  he  was  compelled  to  withdraw. 
Later  on,  then,  we  see  him  struggling  to  reach  the  Indians 
far  up  at  the  North  Sea,  then  journeying  to  the  west  with 
the  saintly  Garreau,  who  was  cruelly  murdered  on  the  Island 
of  Montreal;  and  finally  in  his  old  age  still  lifting  up  the 
cross  on  the  faraway  shores  of  Lake  Superior.  The  Kenne- 
bec may  be  proud  of  its  first  apostle. 

The  two  Fathers  Bigot  came  next,  the  elder  of  whom, 
exhausted  by  his  many  years  of  labor  on  the  Kennebec,  was 
carried  by  his  devoted  brother  to  the  blessed  sanctuary  on  the 
St.  Lawrence,  where  the  darkness  of  death  was  brightened 
by  the  presence  of  his  Indians,  who  remembered  his  dying 
instructions  and  continued  his  apostolic  work  by  repeating 
them  to  their  people.  It  was  he  who  built  "  the  rude  un- 
shapely chapel  "  that  Whittier  has  immortalized. 


36  Three  Historical  Events  in  Maine. 

Above  them  all,  however,  rises  the  luminous  figure  of 
Sebastian  Rasle,  who,  more  than  all  the  rest,  is  the  apostle  of 
Narantsouac.  His  Unitarian  biographer  and  admirer,  Con- 
verse Francis,  says  of  him :  "  I  am  deeply  moved  by  the  life 
of  this  pious,  devoted  and  extraordinary  man.  Nurtured 
amidst  European  learning,  and  accustomed  to  the  refinements 
of  one  of  the  most  intellectual  nations  of  the  Old  World,  he 
banished  himself  from  the  pleasures  of  home  and  from  the 
attractions  of  his  native  land,  and  passed  thirty-five  years  of 
his  life  in  the  forests  of  an  unbroken  wilderness,  amidst  the 
squalid  rudeness  of  savage  life,  and  with  no  companions  dur- 
ing those  long  years  but  the  wild  men  of  the  woods.  With 
them  he  lived  as  a  benefactor  and  a  brother,  sharing  their 
coarse  fare,  their  disgusting  modes  of  life,  their  wants,  their 
perils,  their  exposures,  under  the  stern  inclemency  of  a  hard 
climate,  always  holding  his  life  cheap  in  the  toil  of  duty,  and 
at  last  yielding  himself  a  victim  to  dangers  he  disdained  to 
escape.  And  all  this  that  he  might  gather  these  rude  men 
into  the  fold  of  the  Church  and  bring  them  to  what  he  sin- 
cerely held  to  be  the  truth  of  God  and  the  light  of  heaven." 

Of  marvelous  austerity  of  life,  he  never  let  wine  cross  his 
lips,  and  his  only  food  was  hominy,  and  at  times  nothing  but 
nuts  and  acorns  which  he  dug  up  in  the  forest;  and  in  his 
latter  years  not  infrequently  suffering  the  agonies  of  starva- 
tion. Heroic  in  his  views  of  obedience,  he  abandoned  his 
most  cherished  purpose  and  traversed  the  continent  in  its 
wildest  condition  in  pursuit  of  souls.  Constantly  united  with 
God,  in  the  midst  of  his  overwhelming  labors,  he  never 
omitted  his  yearly  spiritual  retreat  in  distant  Quebec,  and  he 
never  changed  the  time,  lest  his  desire  of  it  might  grow  slack. 

Devoted  to  his  flock,  he  followed  them  on  their  expedi- 
tions, for  twenty  years  after  an  accident  had  crippled  his 
limbs;  of  angelic  purity  of  life,  he  was  untouched  by  the 
moral  horrors  with  which  he  was  surrounded,  and  of  superb 
courage  he  could  reply  to  his  superiors  who  saw  the  dark 


Three  Historical  Events  in  Maine.  37 

storm  gathering  and  wanted  to  save  him :  "  I  will  not 
withdraw;  it  is  proper  that  I  should  die  with  my  flock''; 
and  finally,  when  the  moment  came,  facing  the  blazing 
muskets  of  the  foe  to  protect  his  people,  and  like  the  Sebas- 
tian of  old,  falling  in  his  blood,  riddled  by  unnumbered 
wounds. 

It  was  when  the  seventeenth  century  was  drawing  to  a 
close  that  he  came  to  Narantsouac.  That  was  in  1697  or 
1698,  and  until  the  23d  of  August,  1724,  the  day  of  his  tragic 
death,  there  never  was  a  moment  that  was  not  stamped  with 
the  sublimest  heroism. 

Unfortunately  he  came  when  the  ownership  of  the  land 
between  the  Penobscot  and  Kennebec  was  disputed.  It  was 
a  question  as  to  whether  Acadia  extended  to  the  Penobscot 
or  Kennebec,  but  the  controversy  should  never  have  been 
settled  by  the  murder  of  a  minister  of  God.  That  he  kept 
the  Indians  loyal  to  the  French  was  no  more  of  a  reproach 
than  for  the  English  of  Boston  to  have  kept  their  Indians 
loyal  to  them.  He  would  have  been  a  traitor  to  his  country 
to  have  done  otherwise.  That  he  fomented  Indian  uprisings 
was  a  calumny  which  he  himself  has  refuted,  and  the  testi- 
mony of  such  a  man  is  sufficient,  or,  if  corroboration  were 
needed,  we  have  the  word  of  that  glorious  old  Revolutionary 
hero,  John  Stark,  in  whose  greatness  Maine  rejoices,  that 
Stark's  native  place,  though  exposed  to  the  brunt  of  Indian 
warfare,  was  always  preserved  from  savage  violence  by  the 
interposition  of  Father  Rasle.  That  his  death  is  a  blot  upon 
our  honor,  we  should  admit  with  those  brave  soldiers  of  the 
Revolution  who,  on  their  way  up  the  Kennebec  in  1775,  to 
capture  Quebec — lingered  lovingly  in  the  sacred  place.  "  At 
a  short  distance  below  Norridgewok  Falls,"  says  their  an- 
nalist, who  was  none  other  than  Benedict  Arnold,  their  com- 
mander, not  yet  dishonored  by  his  treason,  "  was  a  wide  and 
beautiful  plain,  once  the  site  of  an  Indian  village,  belonging 
to  a  tribe  from  whom  the  falls  took  their  name,  and  memor- 


38  Three  Historical  Events  in  Maine. 

able  in  the  annals  of  former  days  as  the  theatre  of  a  tragical 
event,  in  which  many  of  the  tribe  were  slain  in  a  sudden  at- 
tack and  among  them  Father  Rasle,  the  venerable  and  learned 
missionary  who  had  dwelt  there  twenty-six  years.  The  foun- 
dation of  a  church  and  of  an  altar  in  ruins  are  still  visible, 
the  only  remaining  memorials  of  a  people  whose  name  was 
once  feared,  and  of  a  man  who  exiled  himself  from  all  the 
enjoyments  of  civilization  to  plant  the  cross  in  a  savage  wil- 
derness, and  who  lost  his  life  in  its  defense.  Let  history  tell 
the  story  as  it  may,  and  let  it  assign  such  motives  as  it  may 
for  the  conduct  of  the  assailants,  the  heart  of  him  is  little  to 
be  envied  who  can  behold  the  melancholy  vestiges  of  a  race 
extinct,  or  pass  by  the  grave  of  Rasle,  without  a  tear  of  sym- 
pathy and  a  sigh  of  regret." 

The  unhappy  and  unchristian  lust  for  land,  which  was 
then  and  is  still  inflicting  such  dishonor  upon  our  country, 
almost  inevitably  ending  in  the  destruction  of  all  the  native 
races,  was  at  the  back  of  this  tragedy.  But  now  that  the 
bitterness  of  religious  feeling  has  subsided,  it  may  be  safely 
said  without  offence,  that  there  was  also  an  element  of  hatred 
for  the  religion  which  the  Indians  practised,  and  of  which 
their  missionary  was  such  an  illustrious  example,  that 
prompted  this  deed  which  has  left  such  a  blot  upon  our  his- 
tory; but  for  which  Maine  is  not  responsible,  for  the  ag- 
gressors came  from  beyond  its  borders. 

As  early  as  1705,  an  attempt  was  made  to  put  an  end  to 
Father  Rasle.  When  the  snow  was  deep  on  the  ground,  and 
the  country  was  like  a  frozen  lake,  270  men  on  snow  shoes 
invested  the  village.  They  found  it  deserted;  the  inhabitants 
had  fled,  and  the  record  of  the  raid  merely  says  in  its  rude 
way :  "  The  large  chapel  with  the  vestry  at  the  end  of  it,  and 
the  house,  the  troops  burned  to  the  ground."  They  thought 
no  more  than  that  of  the  dreadful  desolation  they  had  caused. 
Leaving  helpless  women  and  children  in  the  snows  of  the 
Maine  woods ;  desecrating  the  temple  of  God,  and  hunting  its 


Three  Historical  Events  in  Maine.  39 

minister  like  a  wolf,  aroused  no  horror  in  their  hardened 
souls. 

Sixteen  years  afterward,  the  General  Court  of  Massachu- 
setts sent  300  men  to  repeat  the  outrage.  Rasle  had  barely 
time  to  escape  with  his  life,  for  his  crippled  limbs  made 
flight  difficult,  and  at  one  time  he  lay  crouching  on  the  snow, 
within  a  few  feet  of  his  pursuers.  He  returned  to  find  him- 
self in  the  midst  of  the  ruin  of  his  beloved  mission. 

The  last  act  of  the  tragedy  occurred  on  August  23,  1724. 
Three  hundred,  some  say  1,000,  men  surrounded  the  village 
and  without  warning  opened  fire  on  the  helpless  inhabitants. 
A  mad  rush  was  made  for  the  river;  some  sprang  into  the 
canoes,  but  had  no  paddles;  others  attempted  to  swim  the 
stream;  not  more  than  fifty  gained  the  opposite  bank  and  of 
these  some  fell,  pierced  by  bullets  before  they  could  gain  the 
shelter  of  the  woods.  Where  was  Father  Rasle  ?  Standing 
under  the  village  cross,  confronting  the  foe  to  save  his  peo- 
ple. He  fell  riddled  "with  musket  balls;  his  skull  was  crushed 
in;  his  white  scalp  (he  was  then  near  70)  torn  off  and  sold 
in  Boston.  The  buildings  were  then  given  to  the  flames  and 
when  the  troops  withdrew  some  of  the  poor  Indians  stole 
back,  gathered  up  the  mangled  remains  of  their  beloved 
father,  and  buried  them  under  the  smouldering  remains  of  the 
altar  where  that  morning  he  had  offered  the  Holy  Sacrifice 
of  the  mass.  Around  him  were  buried  the  seven  noble  Abe- 
nakis  who  died  to  defend  him.  And  so  Narantsouac  passed 
away  forever. 

And  yet  it  has  not  passed  away.  The  memory  of  Narant- 
souac can  never  be  obliterated  from  the  history  of  Maine. 
It  will  never  cease  to  be  a  sanctuary  to  which  men  will  come 
to  meditate  and  pray.  For  all  time  it  is  consecrated  ground ; 
invested  with  a  holiness  that  no  other  place  possesses.  For 
though  our  heart  thrills  with  emotion  when  we  find  ourselves 
standing  upon  some  ensanguined  battlefield  where  thousands 
have  died  in  defense  of  their  country's  honor  or  life,  and 


40  Three  Historical  Events  in  Maine. 

though  we  understand  as  Lincoln  so  splendidly  expressed  it 
on  the  field  of  Gettysburg,  that  the  blood  of  a  nation's  soldiers 
imparts  a  consecration  to  the  place  where  it  is  shed,  yet  we 
know  also  that  Qver  and  above  even  this  necessary,  noble  and 
holy  love  of  country,  the  instinct  of  religion  exerts  a  stronger 
and  more  ineradicable  power  over  the  human  soul.  It  is  the 
soul's  acknowledgment  of  God's  supreme  right  over  his  crea- 
tion, and  hence  it  is  that  men  of  all  creeds,  and  men  with  none, 
will  in  spite  of  themselves  confess  to  a  feeling  of  awe  when 
they  enter  the  precincts  of  this  holy  place  where  sacrifice  was 
once  offered  to  Almighty  God,  and  where  a  holy  priest  poured 
out  his  blood  upon  the  steps  of  the  altar.  The  existence  and 
character  of  Narantsouac  is  fixed  forever.  Nor  will  the  name 
of  Father  Rasle  be  ever  forgotten.  Statesmen  and  soldiers 
and  scholars  have  come  and  gone  in  the  upbuilding  of  the 
nation.  Their  deeds  are  chronicled  in  our  histories  and  their 
statues  adorn  our  public  places.  They  have  gained  the  fame 
which  they  sought,  but  alas !  the  records  of  their  achieve- 
ments soon  grow  dim  in  the  nation's  memory.  But  here  is 
one  who  fled  from  recognition,  who  self-exiled  from  his  coun- 
try buried  himself  in  the  impenetrable  forests,  and  who,  more 
than  fifty  years  before  the  American  Revolution,  stood  forth 
a  conspicuous  figure  in  our  national  life.  The  long  struggle 
for  his  hold  on  the  Indians  and  the  dark  tragedy  of  his  taking 
off  forms  one  of  the  vivid  pages  of  our  country's  annals. 
Fifty  years  after  his  death  our  Revolutionary  heroes  come 
to  his  grave  and  venerate  his  memory.  A  hundred  years  go 
by,  and  a  great  prelate  raises  a  monolith  above  his  ashes,  our 
universities  and  museums  glory  in  the  possession  of  his  relics. 
Harvard  treasures  his  writings,  and  Portland  his  cross  and 
the  box  in  which  he  kept  his  chalice.  Historians  who  are 
aliens  to  his  faith  record  the  greatness  of  his  deeds,  and  poets 
weave  in  immortal  verse  the  story  of  his  noble  life.  Under 
the  guidance  of  the  devoted  bishop  who  is  inspired  by  the 
memory  of  the  martyred  priest  great  throngs  are  now  gath- 


Three  Historical  Events  in  Maine.  4I 

ered  on  the  anniversary  of  his  death,  and  are  no  doubt  be- 
ginning that  long  series  of  other  pilgrimages  to  his  tomb, 
where  thousands  will  pay  their  tribute  of  piety  and  love ;  and 
perhaps  in  the  course  of  time,  the  Church  recognizing  the 
greatness  of  its  minister  may  place  a  halo  upon  his  brow,  and 
salute  him  as  a  saint  and  martyr.  Is  there  any  greater  man 
in  the  history  of  Maine? 

Nor  is  Rasle  merely  a  memory.  For  in  spite  of  all  the 
triumphs  of  modern  civilization,  in  spite  of  the  limitless 
power  of  the  mighty  nations  it  has  founded,  the  splendid 
cities  it  has  built,  its  stupendous  wealth,  its  material  progress, 
its  startling  scientific  discoveries,  its  mastery  of  sea  and  of 
earth  and  sky;  it  is,  nevertheless,  displaying  to  an  alarming 
extent  and  in  most  unexpected  ways,  tendencies  which  almost 
forebode  and  perhaps  announce  a  reversal  to  primitive  savage 
conditions.  Look  at  the  millions  of  men  torn  from  all  the 
arts  and  occupations  of  peace,  whom  Clemenceau,  the  savage 
depredator  of  France,  described  as  "  a  soldiery  of  slaves," 
armed  with  terrible  instruments  of  death,  and  ready  to 
butcher  each  other  at  any  moment,  and  whom  the  envoys  of 
peace  at  The  Hague  do  not  dare  to  disband  or  disarm.  Are 
they  very  far  removed  from  the  old  Iroquois  on  the  war- 
path? Are  those  millions  of  organized  anarchists,  who  an- 
nounce their  intention  of  destroying  all  existing  govern- 
ments, and  whose  history  is  already  written  in  outrages  of  the 
most  inhuman  description,  very  unlike  the  savages  of  old  in 
their  wild  outbreaks  of  rapine  and  murder?  Are  the  now 
common  violations  of  international  justice  in  the  oppression 
and  robbery  of  weaker  nations  by  the  stronger  anything  but 
conditions  which  were  supposed  to  be  long  since  extinguished 
by  modern  civilization  ?  Is  the  abolition  of  domestic  decency, 
the  constantly  repeated  rupture  of  the  marriage  bond  fol- 
lowed by  new  associations  till  a  condition  is  arrived  at  al- 
most of  shameless  promiscuity,  anything  else  but  a  return  to 
savage  modes  of  life?     Is  the  abandonment  of  Christianity, 


42  Three  Historical  Events  in  Maine. 

the  openly  avowed  abolition  of  the  moral  law  which  has 
hitherto  obtained  in  our  economic  and  social  relations,  any- 
thing but  savage?  Is  the  scientific  teaching  of  pantheism 
which  is  now  in"  vogue  anything  but  a  renewal  of  paganism 
and  the  worship  of  nature?  Is  the  present  state  of  things 
more  assuring  to  the  governments  of  the  world  than  was  that 
of  the  colonies  when  the  Hurons  and  Mohawks  and  Abenakis 
were  setting  fire  to  villages  and  attacking  stockades  ?  There 
are  not  a  few  wise  men  who  regard  it  as  a  critical  period  in 
the  life  of  our  present  civilization,  and  who  see  no  way  of 
averting  the  disaster. 

Rasle  shows  the  way.  Behold  him,  all  alone  in  these  dark 
forests,  standing  with  his  uplifted  cross,  in  the  midst  of  his 
savages,  checking  their  atrocities  in  war,  preventing  their 
hideous  murders,  restraining  their  unbridled  lusts,  putting 
an  end  to  their  indescribable  orgies  of  drunkenness  and  de- 
bauchery, explaining,  exhorting,  entreating,  imploring,  where 
his  life  was  continually  in  danger,  on  their  bloody  battlefields, 
in  their  forests,  in  their  filthy  cabins,  in  the  midst  of  disease 
and  defilement,  speaking  to  them  of  God,  of  their  souls,  of 
heaven,  of  hell,  of  morality,  and  finally  in  spite  of  the  efforts 
of  white  men  to  stop  him  by  depriving  him  of  life,  leading 
them  by  superhuman  efforts,  after  years  of  indescribable  hard- 
ship and  suffering,  to  some  knowledge  of  human  dignity  and 
human  obligations,  transforming  them  into  Christian  men  and 
women,  and,  though  w^e  can  hardly  credit  it,  developing  in 
them  Christian  virtues  as  brilliant  as  those  that  illustrated 
the  early  church. 

Thus  from  the  woods  of  the  Kennebec  Rasle  arises  as  an 
apostle  for  modern  times.  For  the  words  that  come  from  the 
lips  of  this  man,  long  since  dead,  are  simply  this :  "  Bring 
back  the  world  to  Christianity.  Teach  the  doctrines  of 
Christ;  enforce  His  laws."  Without  those  doctrines  and 
without  those  laws  the  Abenakis  would  have  rotted  in  their 
corruption  :  without  them  the  civilized  nations  of  to-day  will 


Three  Historical  Events  in  Maine.  43, 

inevitably  descend  into  a  similar  degradation.  Such  is  the 
lesson  which  he  taught  on  the  first  day  that  he  crept  into  an 
Indian  wigwam ;  and  he  is  teaching  the  same  lesson  now. 

His  lips  indeed  are  mute,  but  for  seventy-five  years  in 
these  lonely  woods  has  this  silent  shaft  been  repeating  his 
exhortations.  Through  storm  and  sunshine,  through  dark- 
ness and  light,  while  the  lightning  was  quivering  above  its 
head,  and  the  snows  and  heats  have  been  eating  into  its 
heart,  and  undermining  the  foundations  beneath  its  feet,  it 
has  been  holding  aloft  the  sacred  symbol  of  salvation,  the 
cross,  which  is  the  summary  and  substance  of  Christianity; 
not  indeed  as  the  old  Roman  legions  saw  it  glittering  in  the 
skies  with  the  words  above  it :  "  In  this  sign  shalt  thou  con- 
quer " ;  but  on  the  contrary  in  the  way  it  is  most  commonly 
regarded  to-day,  namely,  as  a  sign  of  reproach,  an  emblem  of 
ignorance,  a  proof  of  intellectual  servitude,  and  a  badge  of 
superstition;  but.  nevertheless,  for  those  who  have  eyes  to 
see,  as  radiant  as  the  sun,  and  with  the  same  words  flashing^ 
above  it  as  saluted  the  old  Roman  legionaries :  "  In  this  sign 
shalt  thou  conquer."  For  just  as  in  the  divine  scheme  of 
salvation  it  was  necessary  that  Christ  should  abide  in  humilia- 
tion in  order  that  he  might  rise  in  glory,  so  it  is  ordained 
that  while  belief  in  him  is  almost  invariably  associated  with 
reproach  and  contempt  it  has  at  the  same  time  a  divine  as- 
surance of  rising  with  Christ  in  the  glory  of  eternal  life.  In 
brief,  it  is  in  the  faith  of  Jesus  Christ  alone ;  it  is  in  the  cross 
which  is  its  concrete  expression,  that  there  is  to  be  found 
salvation,  not  only  for  individual  souls,  but  for  the  nations  of 
the  world.  The  monument  that  has  been  all  these  years  lift- 
ing up  the  cross  of  Father  Rasle  to  heaven  has  been  doing 
nothing  else  than  preaching  that  hard  but  salutary  truth. 

So,  too,  has  every  sod  of  this  sacred  soil  been  eloc|uent  in 
the  same  manner.  From  the  blood  which  has  crimsoned 
and  consecrated  the  soil  with  which  his  ashes  have  com- 
mingled, comes  the   loud,  the  jubilant,  the  triumphant  cry. 


44  Three  Historical  Events  in  Maine. 

that  better  than  all  the  world  can  give,  better  than  the  best 
blood  of  a  man's  heart,  is  his  faith  in  Jesus  Christ.  Lo !  here 
lies  a  man.  and  let  us  say  it  with  all  submission  to  the  church's 
future  decision, -here  lies  a  martyr  who  not  only  sacrificed  all 
his  earthly  possessions  that  he  might  attest  his  own  faith, 
but  who  made  his  life  one  of  inconceivable  suffering,  and 
poured  out  every  drop  of  his  blood  that  the  most  abandoned 
creatures  he  could  find  might  participate  in  this  infinite  bless- 
ing. In  a  word,  the  blood  of  Father  Rasle  will  ever  proclaim 
the  truth  which  Christ  uttered  on  the  Mount  of  the  Beati- 
tudes, viz. :  "  Happy  are  we  if  we  suffer  persecution  for 
justice,"  which  means  nothing  else  than  that  aggregate  of 
virtue  which  can  alone  be  achieved  through  faith  in  Jesus 
Christ.  Happy  are  we  if  we  suffer  either  to  retain  or  obtain 
this  faith.     It  is  a  small  price  to  pay  for  our  eternal  salvation. 

But  of  what  avail  is  this  voice  in  the  wilderness?  Of 
what  avail  ?  Why,  there  was  another  voice  crying  out  in  the 
wilderness  and  all  Judea  and  Galilee  came  out  to  hear  it; 
the  heavens  repeated  its  refrain  and  the  whole  world  has 
been  hearkening  to  it  ever  since :  "  Behold  the  Lamb  of  God." 
So,  too,  this  precursor  of  Christ  cried  out  in  the  wilderness 
of  the  Kennebec,  and  the  whole  world  has  heard  him. 

Go  back  to  the  scenes  which  the  old  Quaker  bard  de- 
scribes when 

"  Well  might  the  traveler  start  to  see 
The  dusky  forms  that  wend  their  way 
From  the  birch  canoe  on  the  river  shore, 
And  the  forest  path  to  the  chapel  door; 
And  mark  the  foreheads  bended  there; 
While  above  in  benediction  and  in  prayer, 
Like  a  shrouded  spectre,  pale  and  tall. 
In  coarse  white  vesture — Father  Rasle." 

Nor  let  us  ever  erase  from  our  memory  that  historic 
scene  when  our  revolutionary  heroes  stood  with  moistened 


Three  Historical  Events  in  Maine. 


45 


eye  and  throbbing  heart  to  contemplate  the  blackened  ruins 
of  God's  sanctuary,  crimsoned  by  the  blood  of  God's  priest. 
In  sadness  and  sorrow  they  turned  away  and  no  doubt  fought 
all  the  better  for  their  country  for  having  been  privileged 
to  stand  at  the  grave  of  one  who  had  died  for  God. 

Remember  also  how  seventy-five  years  ago  a  great  multi- 
tude assembled  here  of  every  creed  and  every  station,  red 
men  and  white,  who  stood  around  this  cross,  at  a  time  when 
prejudice  was  harsh  and  bitter,  and  ignorance  engendered 
suspicion,  but  who  nevertheless  rejoiced  to  share  in  the 
homage  paid  to  a  great  and  a  noble  man.  Nor  should  we 
forget  those  solitary  pilgrims  who  journeyed  hither  to  medi- 
tate upon  the  tragic  story,  to  kneel  perhaps  in  prayer  above 
his  remains  or  press  their  lips  upon  the  stone  that  stands  as 
a  sentinel  on  his  grave.     Rasle  spoke  to  them. 

And  may  we  not  cherish  the  hope  when  we  behold  the 
throngs  that  are  here  to-day  to  commemorate  his  glorious 
deeds  and  inspire  their  own  hearts  with  the  story  of  his 
heroism,  that  for  all  time  to  come  other  multitudes  will  bend 
their  steps  to  this  woodland  sanctuary  for  meditation  and 
prayer,  where  every  blade  of  grass,  every  sod,  every  grain 
of  sand,  every  leaf  and  every  wild  flower  that  wafts  its 
tribute  of  fragrance  around  his  grave,  and  every  wavelet  of 
the  river  that  flashes  in  the  sunshine,  or  grows  dark  in  the 
gloom  of  the  forest,  not  only  proclaim  the  glory  and  great- 
ness of  him  who  died  for  his  fellow  man,  but  teach  the 
essential  and  necessary  truth  that  in  Jesus  Christ  alone  we 
can  find  the  light,  which  leads  through  the  otherwise  im- 
penetrable mysteries  of  life;  that  through  Him  alone  we 
can  grow  in  the  heroism  which  is  called  for  in  the  battles 
we  must  sustain,  and  that  toward  Him  alone  we  must  tend 
if  the  heart  is  ever  to  find  peace  and  rest. 

But  why  should  we  speak  only  of,  the  living?  Lo !  the 
long  processions  of  the  dead  are  seen  wending  their  way 
hither,  and  we  may  regard  it  as  little  less  than  an  inspira- 


46  Three  Historical  Events  in  Maine. 

tion  that  prompted  your  apostolic  bishop,  Louis  Sebastian 
Walsh,  to  consecrate  forever  as  God's  Acre  this  holy  spot, 
where  his  illustrious  namesake,  Sebastian  Rasle,  laid  down 
his  life  for  Christ.  It  was  a  thought  from  heaven  which 
provided  that  the  beloved  dead  of  this  vast  diocese  might  be 
laid  side  by  side  with  Maine's  great  confessor  and  proto- 
martyr.  Could  there  be  a  better  or  a  holier  resting  place 
for  those  who  lived  for  Christ  than  this  beautiful  and  doubly 
consecrated  place;  and  can  the  Catholic  heart  fail  to  feel 
anything  but  the  profoundest  gratitude  for  the  noble  and 
spiritual  and  Catholic  solicitude  that  has  irrevocably  con- 
secrated this  venerable  sanctuary  to  God,  so  that  never 
through  the  lapse  of  time  will  any  profane  thing  enter 
within  its  precincts?  And  is  it  an  illusion  to  fancy  that  at 
no  distant  day  a  majestic  and  magnificent  mausoleum  may 
enshrine  the  sacred  remains  that  slumber  here,  so  that  not 
only  those  who  come  with  hearts  burdened  with  sorrow 
for  their  dead,  but  other  thousands,  may  assemble  here  to 
listen  to  the  teachings  of  the  faith  of  Jesus  Christ. 

Maine  has  no  holier  place  than  Narantsouac;  no  greater 
son  than  Sebastian  Rasle,  who  won  that  title  by  shedding 
his  blood  for  the  first  possessors  of  this  land;  and  who 
offered  his  life  a  thousand  times  that  whatever  might  be 
the  future  civilization  of  this  territory,  which  is  now  a 
splendid  commonwealth,  might  have  as  its  foundation  those 
divine  truths  on  which  depend  the  happiness  of  its  people, 
the  sanctity  of  its  households,  the  stability  of  its  laws  and 
the  permanency  of  its  institutions.  The  name  of  Sebastian 
Rasle  should  be  written  in  letters  of  light  in  the  history  of 
Maine. 


^^-X              Date  Due 

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